We are suffering – NABCO Trainees demonstrate over 10 months unpaid allowance

Some workers of the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) have expressed disappointment over the government’s inability to pay their monthly stipends.

The disgruntled personnel, who took to the streets on Thursday, 18 August 2022, to drum home their concerns, said they had been plunged into a point of no hope as the government has turned deaf ears to their pressing issue.

They said the non-payment of their salary for 10 months has made life unbearable due to the current economic challenges.

The demonstrators were clad in red attire and headgear while others were in the NABCO uniform.

They carried placards with inscriptions such as “NABCO Trainees are suffering”, “Pay us, Mr President”, “Honour your permanent employment promise”, and “Don’t impose YouStart on NABCO”.

The beneficiaries, whose programme will end in September, subsequently called on the government to pay all outstanding arrears from 2019 to date without delays.

They ended their protest by presenting a petition to Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.

Deputy Chief of Staff, Emmanuel Adumua-Bossman, received the petition on behalf of the Vice President.

“This government is indeed a listening government, so these things that you have scripted shall be carefully considered at the highest levels, and as soon as it is practicable, you would hear something tangible on the issues you have raised.

“May all of us continue to be a little bit more patient as we know that it has been a trying time not just for only you but for the entire population,” Mr. Adumua-Bossman said.

In an earlier interview sometime in October 2019, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the programme, Dr Ibrahim Anyass, said the non-payment of allowances that have plagued the implementation of the Nations Builders Corps (NABCO) are just natural mechanical hitches.

Dr. Anyass explained that circumstances such as incomplete records on the part of some recruits genuinely hindered the payment process.

“One will be naive to think that you can have a new creation such as the Nation Builders Corps on such scale and extension and not have issues or challenges. For us, we just see this as natural to the implementation of the program. Some circumstances present themselves for people to relocate.

“These issues are natural because this is a human institution, and so people had to move, and they find that they were stuck with the data. Those were just mere implementation stage issues, but as we speak, most of those issues have been resolved,” he said.

Despite these setbacks, Dr Anyass assured that all allowances due to trainees are being paid, but the latest statement by the trainees suggests that the problem persists.

About NABCo

The Nation Builders Corps (NABCo) programme is a government initiative implemented to address the growing phenomenon of graduate unemployment.

The focus is to solve public service delivery in health, education, agriculture, technology, governance, and driving revenue mobilisation and collection.

The objectives of the programme are to:

• Provide temporary employment to unemployed graduates
• Improve skills and employability for the transition from program to permanent employment
• Improve public service delivery
• Improve government revenue mobilisation
• To provide needed infrastructure to improve access to basic public services

Under the programme, graduates are expected to be trained, equipped with the necessary work tools, and deployed around the country to engage in the following programmes:

• Educate Ghana
• Heal Ghana
• Feed Ghana
• Revenue Ghana
• Digitise Ghana
• Civic Ghana
• Enterprise Ghana

It was initially supposed to run for three years and ended in October 2021 but was extended for an additional year.

It will be recalled that during the 2022 budget statement, the government had indicated that the YouStart programme and a Digital inclusion program would gradually absorb the remaining NABCo trainees.

Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta, who presented the budget in Parliament, explained that the programme would be cancelled and replaced with the YouStart initiative, an entrepreneurial initiative for employment.

“As they exit, the current cohort on the programme is encouraged to take advantage of the YouStart initiative and other existing programmes in our drive to build an entrepreneurial nation.

The government’s policy is to support dynamic young entrepreneurs’ access to training and funds to build their businesses and become a significant pool of job providers for their fellow young people,” he noted.

So far, the government has invested approximately GH¢2.2 billion into the programme.